| Alpine rangeland in the Northern Tibetan region of China is not only a material base for livestock production, but also plays important role in the ecological safety shelter zone for China, even southeast Asia region. However, the alpine rangeland degradation of local region caused the ecological deterioration, low economic development, and poor living of herders, resulting in dilemma of sustainable development of the northern Tibetan region. Thus alpine rangeland degradation not only threatens the local ecological safety and life of the local residents, but also threatens further ecological security of the down-streams of the rivers and the Southeast Asia Rivers. Therefore, on the basis of closely combining the problems in natural science and economical development policy in social science, evaluating ecological services value of rangeland and establishing effective compensation mechanism of rangeland are urgent to maintain ecological services function of rangeland and coordinate the relationships among population, resource environment and economic development, which will provide useful information for protecting rangelands from the further degradation and achieving sustainable development of ecological, economic and social.As a case of the Naqu region in northern Tibet, firstly, this study analyzed the current situation of alpine rangelands ecosystem and the game relationship between protection of ecological safety shelter zone and development of animal husbandry economy; secondly, this study evaluated sustainable development degree and disclosed interaction mechanism among ecological function, productive function and livelihood function (EPLF); thirdly, this study established the evaluation system and proposed methods of ecological services value of rangeland ecosystem based on EPLF, and used this established evaluation system and methods to evaluate the ecological services value of different rangeland type and loss value of different degradation degree rangeland, and then analyzed the relationship between economic value resulting from grazing and loss value of ecological services value caused by alpine rangeland degradation; fourthly, Mechanism of ecological compensation for alpine rangeland was designed based on the function subarea and grading of alpine rangeland and proposed the plan of ecological compensation; finally, this study presented the countermeasure of sustainable development of alpine rangelands. The main results in this study are as following.First, the out-of-balance gaming between ecological safety shelter zone and animal husbandry economy was the main external driver of alpine rangeland degradation, and alpine rangelands ecosystem in the Naqu region of northern Tibet was unsustainable development situation.After analyzing the current situation of the alpine rangelands ecosystem in the Naqu region, northern Tibet, this study found that the out-of-balance gaming between ecological safety shelter zone and development of local animal husbandry economy among central government, local government and herdsman caused the degradation of alpine rangeland, and this degradation weaken the ecological services function of alpine rangeland ecosystem; therefore, it was drew a conclusion that the out-of-balance gaming between ecological safety shelter zone and animal husbandry economy was the main external driver of alpine rangeland degradation. Based on the EPLF of alpine rangeland ecosystem, this study applied complex ecosystem field theory to establish the evaluation system and models of rangeland sustainable development, and the quantitative evaluation results showed that the development location of alpine rangeland ecosystem exceeded its maximum value of carrying capacity, and that development potential, harmonious degree and the sustainable development degree of alpine rangeland ecosystem was very low, indicating that alpine rangelands ecosystem was unsustainable development situation in the Naqu region in the northern Tibet.Second, the interaction mechanism of EPLF for alpine rangeland ecosystem was not linear internal relation, but was polybasic coupling, multidimensional linkage and multiple feedbacks with the interaction of population pressure, grazing pressure and environmental carrying capacity.The alpine rangeland ecosystem was balance and health when population and grazing pressure was below the threshold of environmental carrying capacity, and vice versa. The interaction of population pressure, grazing pressure and environmental carrying capacity developed an interaction mechanism of EPLF, which was not linear internal relation, but was polybasic coupling, multidimensional linkage and multiple feedbacks. The Equivalent of the Ecological Services Function (EESF) was designed to compare the relationship of EPLF in this study, and EESF was used to quantify the relationship among EPLF by determining the effect of on structure and functions of alpine rangeland ecosystem. The quantitative relationship among EPLF was used to estimate the population carrying capacity of alpine rangelands in the Naqu region under the different economic requirements. Here, per-capita income of well-to-do society and overcome-poverty life line for the herdsman proclaimed by China government in 2008 were considered as threshold to estimate the population carrying capacity of alpine rangelands in study region, the estimated results showed that the population carrying capacity of current alpine rangeland in well-to-do society and overcome-poverty life line decreased by 60% when compared to population carrying capacity of original rangeland. Based on the gross domestic product of animal husbandry of the Naqu region in 2008, the current population carrying capacity accounted for 96.3% of population carrying capacity in overcome-poverty life, but accounted for 489.2% of population carrying capacity in well-to-do society. The current population carrying capacity accounted for 14.2% and 85.9% of population in overcome-poverty life line and well-to-do society, respectively, when compared to population carrying capacity of original alpine rangeland. The current population carrying capacity accounted for accounted for 36% and 118.9% of estimated population carrying capacity in the overcome-poverty life line and well-to-do society in the Naqu region, respectively.Third,evaluation system and models of ecological services value of rangeland ecosystem were designed and established in this study, and they was used to evaluate ecological services value of alpine rangeland ecosystem in the Naqu region of northern Tibet. The evaluation results indicated that total annual ecological services value was 119.907 billion RMB, but total loss of annual ecological services value was 586.27 billion RMB.The 12 indicators with high contribution to ecological services function of alpine rangeland ecosystem were selected in this study by combing regional difference, spatial heterogeneity, and difference of economic development level at different areas. Based on the theory of ecological economic, the selected 12 indicator was applied to establish the index system and models to evaluate the ecological services value of alpine rangeland ecosystem of the Naqu region in northern Tibet. The evaluation results indicated that the total annual ecological services value of alpine rangeland was 119.907 billion RMB in the Naqu region, in which ecological services value of alpine steppe, alpine desert, alpine desert steppe, alpine meadow were 62.9%,1.5%, 8%, and 28.1% of the total ecological services value, respectively. This study also showed that ecological services value of original vegetation, slight degradation, moderate degradation, and severe degradation made up of 54.9%,29.3%,11%, and 4.8% of the total ecological services value, respectively. The loss of total annual ecological services value was 586.27 billion RMB due to alpine rangeland degradation in Naqu region, the average loss rate was 32.8% when compared to the total annual ecological services value of original alpine rangeland with 1800 billion RMB. The annual total economic income would reach 2.294 billion RMB when the rangeland was original in Naqu, this is to say, and the loss of ecological services value caused by rangeland degradation was 25.6 times of economic income from animal production in the original rangeland. This study further indicated that the loss of ecological services value caused by overgrazing one sheep unit was 13.9 times of economic value from overgrazing one sheep unit in the Naqu region of northern Tibet.Fourth, the function subarea and grading of alpine rangeland was used to establish the mechanism of ecological compensation for alpine rangeland, and the corresponding ecological compensation plan was designed in the Naqu region of northern Tibet.Four indicators, including productivity, importance of seasonal grazing, ecological services value, and ecological environmental sensitivity of each alpine rangeland subtype, were applied to design the functional subarea model in this study for determining ecological compensation regions. The alpine rangelands of the Naqu region in northern Tibet were classified into the production sector with moderate grazing, restoration sector with reducing livestock number, and conservation sector by anti-grazing, and they accounted for 24%,50%, and 26% of the total rangeland area of the Naqu region, respectively. These function subarea and grading of alpine rangeland was used to establish the mechanism of ecological compensation for alpine rangeland, in which measures of rewards and punishment for different function sector were presented. The corresponding ecological compensation plan was designed in the Naqu region of northern Tibet, in which the ecological compensation period was considered as 5 yeares and the total ecological compensation fund for alpine rangeland of the Naqu region was 35.77 billion RMB, which was allocated for the moderate production sector with 19.4 billion RMB, restoring sector with 15.77 billion RMB, and conservation sector with 0.6 billion RMB.Final, the framework of sustainable development strategy of alpine rangeland ecosystem was established, and the six countermeasures of sustainable development were presented to keep the health of alpine rangeland ecosystem in the Naqu region of northern Tibet.Based on government leading and herdsman participating, the framework of sustainable development strategy of alpine rangeland was established from aspect of institution, policy, project, fund, technology and management. The systems of cost accounting of environment and dynamic monitor of rangeland should be established. It was effort to carry out ecological compensation, perfect laws and regulations, ascertaining main function between ecological safety shelter zone and development of region economy, practice ecological emigration and develop ecological animal husbandry. The countermeasures of sustainable development of alpine rangelands were presented to keep the health of alpine rangeland ecosystem in the Naqu region of northern Tibet in the view of institutional arrangement, concept improvement, pattern innovation and technology integration. |
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